Calendars

Cuban Environmental Educator Will Speak in Keene August 19

Roberto Perez, a Cuban permaculturist and environmental educator for the Antonio NÃºÃ±ez Jiménez Foundation for Nature and Humanity, will speak on Monday, August 19, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., in the auditorium of the Keene Public Library. The public is warmly welcome to this free event. It is presented by Antioch University New England and the Keene Community Garden Connections.

Perez is on a speaking tour to raise scholarship funds for the IPC 11 Cuba: The 2013 International Permaculture Congress, which takes place in Cuba this November. He will talk about Cuba’s struggles and progress in sustainable agriculture and sustainable development. His work was highlighted in the movie The Power of Community, which detailed how Cuba dealt with its own Peak Oil when the Soviet bloc collapsed in the early 1990s.

Cuba formerly imported most of its food, but its agriculture is now 95 percent organic and the city of Havana produces more than 60 percent of its own fruits and vegetables within the city’s urban spaces.

Perez has been part of the Cuban permaculture movement since its introduction in the country in 1993. For seventeen years, he has worked at the Antonio NÃºÃ±ez Jiménez Foundation for Nature and Humanity, the Cuban nonprofit organization central to the Cuban permaculture movement since 1995. He has lectured and taught permaculture workshops and courses throughout the world, and has represented the Antonio Nunez Jimenez foundation in national and global events. He has a graduate degree in biology from the University of Havana and studied community-based resource management at the University of St. Francis Xavier in Nova Scotia.